Survey. Youth’s idea of the future before and after the pandemic (2020)
Values in the lives of young people aged between 18 and 30 in Italy, Germany, Poland and Russia are strongly oriented towards social and private values, whereas they are distant from political and spiritual values. This is what emerges from a survey carried out in the four European countries on young people and their idea of the future. The initiative, whose results can be compared with those recorded in two previous surveys on the idea of the future among young people conducted in 2018 and 2019, was promoted by a group of experts belonging to different bodies: for Italy, Eurispes, which also relied on the collaboration of the CoRiS Department of the Sapienza University of Rome and the Mercatorum University of Rome, the Department of Economic Sciences of the University of Bologna. The 2020 survey reveals a kind of “apathy of values” expressed by young Italians. A sharp drop is reported in the position of values such as “an honest life” (-22.5%), “respect for the law” (-21.2%), “following ideals, principles” (-19.4%), “personal independence, freedom” (-19%) and “education” (-20.8%). In a situation marked by increasing and widespread mortality and the pleas of the authorities along with the emphasis of communication to protect oneself from the aggression of the virus, the value “health”, ceded its position compared to the value “democracy” (overall value “democracy” equal to 90.6%; value “health” equal to 85.9%; it was equal to 97.8% in 2018).
For young Italian women, the central importance of the family has lost its absolute character. Young women recognise the importance of education (79.1%) and career (78.1%), work (81.1%) and money (84.8%), independence and personal freedom (77.5%), freedom of speech (76.7%) and adherence to ideals and principles (78.5%), as well as the importance of family (78.4%) and children (78.3%) Only 17.9% of young Italians want to stay with their parents. In fact, 82.1% of young Italians declare that they want to lead an independent life in the future and consider that the optimal age for this change of life is 23.7 years (average value). But in other countries there is a greater desire for autonomy. In many cases the fear of taking off is related to the economic situation.
Young Italians’ opinions on the ideal number of children (2.2 children) slightly exceed the amount needed for simple generational reproduction (for other countries, the indications are: France 2.0, Poland, 2.2, Russia 2.0). When one then links this ideal projection to the actual living conditions of young people, their orientation immediately falls to an average number of 1.61 children per woman.
According to young Italians, a comfortable and dignified existence without unnecessary tensions is achieved when the monthly income reaches EUR 2,349. In comparison with young people in other countries, this is achieved with the following income level: France 9,878.87 euro, Poland 908.99 euro, Russia 1,258.72 euro.
In 2020, with the deterioration of the real situation of the economy, young Italians became bolder in their plans for the future: their income estimates (to be achieved in the next 10-15 years) were 40% higher than the 2019 average (3,380 euro per month) and they indicated a figure of 4,368 euro as their goal. Girls “dream” less big than boys: in fact, while the latter set an income of 4,831 euro as their goal, young girls stop at 3,878 euro.
As for the planning of their work, most young people concentrate on finding a job (35.2%), mainly in a private enterprise (23.6%) rather than in a public structure (11.6%). A quarter of the respondents want to start their own business (24.9%). However, it is still an open problem that 13% of young people do not plan any job search.
Confidence in one’s own country and in the years to come is increasing. The assessment of young people on the current situation and in the 10-15 year perspective generally marks Italy with positive judgements. Despite having gone through a very difficult 2020, young people indicated a “step towards the future” for Italy with a positive value of +1.81 points, higher than the increase in the country indicator in 2018, which was +1.06 points. The country’s social sphere received the highest index of increase in young people’s assessments of future prospects (10-15 years), rising from an assessment of 4.5 points for the current situation to 5.9 points for the future situation, placing this trend of improvement in first place compared to the other spheres of Italian community life. In 2020, in comparison with 2019, there was a change in the leading figures indicated in reference to the different groups of authoritative individuals: representatives of culture and art lost their leading role (from 40.4% to 9.3%) and the State’s efforts to combat the pandemic paid off: the majority of young Italians found role models worthy of imitation among state and political figures (25.5% in 2019 and 40.8% in 2020). Athletes are still considered a positive role model, mainly footballers (23.6%), followed by pop artists (20.8%) and scientists (19.1%).
THE ENGLISH SUMMARY OF THE REPORT IS AVAILABLE AT THE FOLLOWING LINK
